Pinocchio Part 20A

This sequence, where Pinocchio escapes from Pleasure Island and discovers that Geppetto has gone searching for him, is very much exposition. It marks the end of the second act and the start of the third.

The letter from the Blue Fairy is somewhat clumsy. Why doesn't she appear herself? I'm guessing it's because we need to see Pinocchio make the decision to go after Geppetto on his own and not have him come to it through discussion. Still, to have Jiminy reading the letter in order for the characters and the audience to learn information is pretty poor storytelling.

One of the interesting things about animation here is that Woolie Reitherman is one of the few animators who gets to do more than one character in a shot. During the early shots with Pinocchio running, Reitherman handles both Pinocchio and Jiminy. Later in the film, there are shots by Reitherman that include Jiminy and Monstro.

Reitherman's Jiminy is solid in this sequence. There's good comic animation in shot 12 where Jiminy is trying to dry off and in shot 29 there's a terrific take when Jiminy realizes that Geppetto has been swallowed by a whale.

While this sequence is built around Pinocchio's moral turning point - his independent decision to do right by rescuing his father - the direction and animation throw this moment away. There is no shot of Pinocchio wavering between fear of Monstro and the love of his father. Such a shot would literally show his thoughts and coming to a decision. I think that the film missed a major personality opportunity by not including this. Certainly Frank Thomas, the animator who did Pinocchio in these scenes, was capable of pulling it off. However, the film wastes Thomas in this sequence. What's here isn't particularly taxing from an acting standpoint and lesser animators could have done the job equally well.

Pinocchio Part 20

Pinocchio Part 19A

As I mentioned earlier, I think this is the scariest sequence in any Disney animated film. It is beautifully set up and there's even humour to start with.

The audience has already learned through Jiminy that the boys turn into donkeys. So when Lampwick grows long ears, the audience can concentrate more on Pinocchio's reaction than on the ears. The film makers didn't want surprise to step on Ollie Johnston's great reaction shot where Pinocchio pushes away the beer. There's more comedy when Pinocchio tosses the cigar.

Pinocchio's lack of empathy for others comes across when he laughs at Lampwick's predicament. It's only when Pinocchio's laugh comes out like a donkey's bray that he realizes that Lampwick's problem is also his own. Lampwick is oblivious to his own condition and only begins to realize it when his own laugh turns into a bray. From this point forward, Fred Moore gets to do the most dramatic animation of his career and he does a brilliant job. First, Lampwick tentatively feels his face. His sense of touch isn't enough to convince him. It's only when he pulls down his ears and sees them and then rushes to the mirror that the full horror of what's happened to him sinks in. Shot 14 is Moore's last and he perfectly captures Lampwick's panic as he madly scrambles around the room trying to make sense of it. Then Lampwick turns to Pinocchio, begging for help and even asking for Jiminy's help. Lampwick's clasped hands, his crawling on his knees, his desperate, begging advance on Pinocchio is very powerful animation.

I don't know if Bob Youngquist or Milt Neil animated Lampwick's hands turning into hooves in shot 16. The animation itself is nothing out of the ordinary, though the shaking is a nice touch. However, the context that it's in, preceded by Moore's portrayal of panic and accompanied by Ollie Johnston's horrified Pinocchio reacting, makes the shot incredibly powerful. We're watching Lampwick's humanity vanish in front of our eyes. Like Alexander, Lampwick's last words are calling for his mother. His bravado, his defining characteristic, doesn't survive his transition.

Milt Neil shows Pinocchio reacting to Lampwick and then Milt Kahl steps in to portray the beginnings of Pinocchio's transition. Kahl doesn't get as much footage as Moore as the audience already knows the process and it can be shortened, but Kahl is every bit as effective as Moore in conveying the panic that arises. Note how effective the simple addition of a line under Pinocchio's eyes changes his emotional state.

Don Towsley animates Jiminy's frantic return to lead Pinocchio off the island. Rescuing Pinocchio is Jiminy's chief act in the film, enabling Pinocchio to finally become an active character and develop a conscience of his own.

Pinocchio Part 19

Pinocchio Part 18A

This sequence exposes one of the weaknesses in the story, one which Disney inherited from the original book. In a story where a fox and a cricket speak, you've got to really be obvious to let the audience know that the donkeys aren't supposed to and that those that can still speak started out as boys.

Alexander is the only character in the Pleasure Island sequence outside of Pinocchio, Lampwick, the Coachman and Jiminy who has dialogue. Looking at him, I can't help but think of Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which takes two minor characters from Hamlet and reimagines the play from their viewpoint, or The Wind Done Gone, a version of Gone With the Wind told from the viewpoint of Scarlett O'Hara's mulatto half sister. You could make a whole other film that was Alexander's story, leading up to Pleasure Island and even following his life as a donkey.

When I upload the next sequence, you'll see that this sequence is numbered in such a way to suggest that it originally followed Lampwick's transformation into a donkey. It's interesting that they felt the need to reveal this to Jiminy before Pinocchio experiences it. Maybe it was a way of preparing the children in the audience for what is the most terrifying sequence in all of Disney. Or maybe Jiminy's discovery coming after Lampwick's transformation would be an anti-climax.

Woolie Reitherman takes over Jiminy. His work isn't as crisp as the other animators who have handled the character earlier. Eric Larson, known for his animal animation, is responsible for the best donkey shots. He certainly evokes sympathy for the donkeys. Charles Nichols continues with the coachman. It's interesting to see Bill Shull here, taking some donkey shots, as he usually was Tytla's assistant and animated scenes on Tytla sequences.

Pinocchio Part 18

Pinocchio Part 17A

This is a great section for acting. The characters are very well defined and the conflict stems from their differing points of view. Lampwick is a delinquent, but one with an easy machismo. You can see why Pinocchio is attracted to him as a role model. Lampwick is also totally dismissive of Jiminy, and why shouldn't he be? Why would anyone take advice from an insect?

Frankie Darro never amounted to much in live action. He got stuck in a lot of B movies, though he did get the occasional role in more important films like William Wellman's Wild Boys of the Road. However, his performance as Lampwick is just perfect. The gruff edge in his voice and the dead-end kid attitude really make the character.

Fred Moore's animation, as I mentioned earlier, strikes a balance between portraying Lampwick as the tough that he is while still making him appealing. Bits of business like shot 15, where he grabs the cigar from the air after launching it with his billiards shot, show his gutter style. You can tell how much Moore is enjoying himself with this character and while Moore is known for lots of animation, I wonder if this wasn't his most successful performance.

Below are some frame grabs from shot 16 by Milt Kahl.

When I see animation like this, I feel badly that Kahl was stuck on such boring characters in the Disney features in the 1950s. He had a real talent for broad comedy and wasn't afraid to drastically change a character's shape. You can see more of this type of Kahl's animation in Saludos Amigos, where he handled the llama in the Donald Duck sequence. I'm also pretty sure he did the girl in Duck Pimples.

In a way, Kahl was a victim of his own drawing skill. He got stuck with the characters nobody else was good enough to draw, but look what he was capable of when a shot called for cartoon acting. I'd gladly give up his animation of Peter Pan and Prince Philip for more animation like the above.

Kahl's Pinocchio is a failure as a guttersnipe, but you've got to give him credit for trying.

The Jiminy unit does excellent work here. John Elliotte, Don Towsley and Bernie Wolf are all underrated animators based on their work in this film. Wolf does lovely work in the first part of Jiminy's tirade against Pinocchio. Very strong poses with emphatic lines of action. Ward Kimball finishes up with Jiminy leaving in disgust, easily matching Wolf's work.

Jiminy is upset seeing Pinocchio's moral lapses, but his anger is directed at Lampwick, who belittles him. That's what causes Jiminy to walk off; not Pinocchio's behaviour. When Jiminy returns for Pinocchio, it will be believable due to how this scene was written.

The image at left is from shot 58 by Kimball. This specific image is held for 4 frames. I always thought that it was odd. I have to wonder if it was originally shot on ones like the preceding footage but it went by too fast. I also wonder if Kimball shot a pose test and when the inbetweens were done, the fall didn't have the same punch. This is a case (and a rare one in Disney features) where the drawing calls attention to itself as a drawing. It does go by quickly, but you can feel that something odd happened. The effect is even more pronounced on a theatre screen. It does show that the studio was willing to violate its own aesthetic if the result was the right effect.

Pinocchio Part 17

Pinocchio Part 16A

Given the later existence of Disneyland, this has to be one of the most ironic sequences in Disney. Pleasure Island has many of the features of the standard amusement park, such as a ferris wheel, merry-go-round and roller coaster, but of course it has other attractions such as the Rough House, the Model Home Open for Destruction and Tobacco Road. The film implies that there's a thin line between fun and delinquency, which may be why Disneyland management works so hard to control the visitors. Anarchy lurks just below the surface.

Lampwick strikes a match on the Mona Lisa and then throws a brick through a stained glass window. Pinocchio chops up a piano, in effect fulfilling Stromboli's threat of reducing a woodcarver's work to firewood! The Disney artists are exhibiting a form of elitism here. The worst things aren't how people treat each other, it's how they treat creative work.

Fred Moore's work in shot 2 communicates beautifully. Lampwick discards most of a chicken when something catches his attention. Pinocchio, impressionable as ever, goes along with Lampwick's desire to get into a scrap. He pitches his pie and ice cream and then the two of them strut into the tent. That strut is just amazing for the amount of attitude that Moore gets into it. Their chests and rears are stuck out, their elbows are rigid while their arms swing and they walk to the beat of the jazzy soundtrack. The two of them are all arrogant appetite with no thought for anyone other than themselves.

Don Towsley's Jiminy in shot 4 does a great job of showing how vulnerable Jiminy is. Surrounded by stampeding feet, he has to duck and weave to avoid being squashed. It would be easy for Jiminy to give up at this point, so it's a measure of his resolve that this time, he doesn't abandon Pinocchio.

We've seen the coachman use his whip on donkeys but now we see him use it on two-legged creatures. Those faceless figures who shut the door to the Island are some of the scariest things ever in a Disney film. Are they wearing hoods or are they monsters of some sort? We don't know and never find out a thing about them. It's part of the power of this film that there are scary things that we only get glimpses of. The implication is that the world is more evil than we know and if we're not careful we'll be sucked into horrors beyond our imagination, as Pinocchio is about to find out.

Pinocchio Part 16

Pinocchio Part 15A

This sequence introduces Lampwick, sort of the anti-Jiminy. His anticipation of the fun on Pleasure Island, contrasted to the Coachman's reaction shot (9.1) sets up the two sides of the island that we'll get to see.

While you couldn't know it until seeing the film a second time, the coach is drawn by donkeys, undoubtedly ones who were previously passengers.

Once again, Pinocchio is a blank slate, not recognizing that the ace of spades isn't a ticket, though it generally is a symbol of death. Lampwick's personality overpowers Pinocchio, not letting him finish a sentence. Lampwick indulges himself by shooting rocks at the donkeys. For all of his bravado, he proves to be as gullible as Pinocchio about what awaits them. If he only knew where those donkeys came from...

Fred Moore is the star here. In just a few shots, he defines Lampwick as a type: the boy who thinks he's tough and who can't wait to grow up to be a "hoodlum" as Jiminy will call him. The appealing design is necessary. We've got to like Lampwick enough so that when his transformation occurs, it horrifies us. If he is a unlikable character, we might cheer his punishment, so Moore has to walk the line between attracting and repelling us with the character and he strikes the right balance.

Note shots 3 and 9 for the coach passengers. They are simplified, probably due to the size they were drawn. This problem plagues the Fleischer version of Gulliver's Travels quite a bit during the sequence where Gulliver is bound by the Lilliputians. It's a bit surprising to see it in this film, even for only a few shots.

There are some nice effects shots as the coach reaches the shore, the boys board the ship and the ship sails to the island. Shot 18 uses a held painting of the boat and water effects that are panned towards the opening in the rocks. The shot is simple compared to much in the film, but it shows how good art direction and a strong composition can often do a better job than elaborate effects.

Addendum to Part 13A: There's been discussion about Shamus Culhane's animation of Honest John and whether or not he was unfairly deprived of credit. I have no more information on that, but on page 145 of The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney by Michael Barrier, Hugh Fraser is quoted as to how he did 48 pencil tests of sequence 7, shot 30. Culhane claimed to have worked on sequence 7, where Honest John and Gideon plot with the coachman, and while Fraser's scene was probably an extreme case, it's possible that Culhane's scenes were also revised numerous times after he left by Norm Tate, leaving little or nothing of Culhane's work. T. Hee was the sequence director of sequences 3 and 7, both of which Culhane claimed to have worked on, so Hee may be more responsible than Walt Disney for Culhane not getting credit in the drafts or on the film.

Pinocchio Part 15

Pinocchio Part 14A

This sequence is really a vaudeville turn. We've already seen Honest John bamboozle Pinocchio once, so the only surprise here is his approach and the individual gags in the sequence. There's no character development, just comedy and exposition. Pinocchio is heading home and the purpose of the sequence is to get some laughs while changing Pinocchio's destination.

Walter Catlett, who started in vaudeville and had a long career as a character comedian in films, is the voice of Honest John. Catlett worked for Frank Capra several times (Platinum Blonde, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Here Comes the Groom) and also worked for Howard Hawks in Bringing Up Baby. Hawks credited Catlett with teaching Katharine Hepburn how to play comedy in that film. Disney was obviously happy with Catlett as he later hired him to play Colonel Plug in Davy Crocket and the River Pirates. Catlett knows how to deliver Honest John's slick line of baloney fast enough to overwhelm any objections.

Animation-wise, this sequence is marked by the absence of big names with the exception of John Lounsbery on Gideon. This is another sequence where we have to acknowledge Disney's bench strength. Harvey Toombs, Sam Cobean (later a New Yorker cartoonist) and Preston Blair all contribute solid work to carrying the sequence. Phil Duncan does some very funny animation of the disheveled Pinocchio after Honest John examines him.

The characters once again exit singing "Hi Diddle Dee Dee," and Honest John and Gideon vanish from the film having accomplished their purpose. From this point forward, the film takes a much darker turn.

Pinocchio Part 14

Pinocchio Part 13A

This might be the only sequence without the presence of any of the main characters. As such, it's purely exposition where we learn that Pleasure Island is not a place that Pinocchio should be going.

However, within this sequence, there is some character development. We learn how truly small-time Honest John and Gideon are. The bag of coins that Honest John received from Stromboli is miniscule compared to what Stromboli earned from Pinocchio's appearance. We also get a look at the Coachman's swag, so we know that he's a bigger player than Honest John.

Honest John moves his finger across his throat, implying that he's comfortable with murder for a price, but when he hears about Pleasure Island all of his bravado disappears and genuine panic sets in, reinforcing that the character is all show and very little substance. Only Pinocchio's inexperience allows Honest John to accomplish anything.

The coachman appears benign, quietly smoking his pipe and casually explaining his plans. Where Honest John panics, the coachman is confident of evading the law and the memorable close-up where he says that that never come back "as boys" clearly demonstrates that beneath the doughy exterior is a criminal far more lethal and cold-blooded than Honest John could ever be.

The draft for this section is a little confusing. Shots 25, 27, 31, 34, 37 and 40 have only the coachman, yet Nick Nichols and Norm Ferguson are both credited. I don't know why that is. The coachman's most impressive shot, 42, is credited to Nichols alone.

This is another sequence that Shamus Culhane claimed to have worked on, yet Norm Tate is credited with much of the Honest John footage. However, Ferguson's work in shot 41 is the best Honest John acting in the sequence. Perhaps sequence director T. Hee felt that Tate wasn't up to the acting challenge. That shot, and Nichols following shot 42, are both important for communicating how big a threat Pleasure Island and the coachman actually are.

There is a visual pun that probably goes unnoticed these days. One of the slang terms for a doughnut is a sinker. When Honest John says that Pinocchio fell for it "hook, line and sinker," the camera is on Gideon, dunking a smoke doughnut into his beer.

Pinocchio Part 13

Pinocchio Part 12A

The one shot sequence 4-7, where Geppetto and Pinocchio cross paths, is a typical melodramatic convention where characters just miss each other and don't know it. It's a convention because it works. It worked for Dickens and D.W. Griffith and it certainly works for Disney.

The next sequence starts out with Pinocchio and Jiminy realizing their mistakes and wallowing in self pity. The appearance of the Blue Fairy puts both of them in a panic as they each feel guilt for their actions. Unfortunately for Pinocchio, that guilt isn't enough to make him tell the truth and he tells the Blue Fairy one whopper after another, causing his nose to grow. It's Jiminy who persuades the Blue Fairy to give them another chance, and in a neat structural reversal, he bats his eyelashes at her the same way she did when she convinced him to become Pinocchio's conscience.

The Blue Fairy gives them a fresh start and vanishes, leaving them to head home, presumably wiser for their experiences. Unfortunately, Pinocchio still has a lot to learn.

The self-pity scenes are a duet between Ollie Johnston on Pinocchio and Ward Kimball on Jiminy. Both characters hold their left hands to their faces, visually reinforcing their similar failures and emotional states. Pinocchio's tears, which drench Jiminy, are parallel to the rain that poured down on Jiminy and Geppetto.

Jiminy blows Pinocchio's nose, reminding us that it functions as a nose before Pinocchio's lies turn it into a branch.

With the arrival of the Blue Fairy, Kimball steps out and Bernie Wolf steps in for Jiminy. Once Pinocchio's nose starts to sprout leaves, John Elliotte replaces Wolf and Frank Thomas takes Pinocchio over from Ollie Johnston. However, the animators keep changing. Wolf comes back for Jiminy's eyelash batting and Les Clark and Walt Clinton do Pinocchio scenes inbetween those done by Thomas and Johnston.

What we have here isn't casting by character and certainly not casting by shot or sequence. It's surprising that the sequence works as well as it does in terms of emotional consistency. The animators do get extended acting chances here, but the character arcs are split among many animators. Without tight story work and good character layouts, this sequence could deteriorate into a mess. While the sequence works, you can't say that the work has been logically assigned.

Switching gears for a moment, I want to talk about the assistant director for this sequence, Ford Beebe. I can't imagine how he came to be involved with Disney. Beebe, for those who don't know, is probably best known as a director of live action serials and B movies. He was writing films as early as 1916 and directing as early as 1922, working heavily in westerns. In the 1930s, he specialized in live action films based on comic strips such as Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Tim Tyler's Luck, Jungle Jim and Secret Agent X-9.

I have no idea how he came to Disney or what caused him to leave. Alberto Becattini credits Beebe as the director of the "Pastoral Symphony" in Fantasia (1940) as well as The Thrify Pig (1941), Seven Wise Dwarfs (1941) and Donald's Decision (1942). And we know from this draft that he was also an assistant director on Pinocchio.

After Disney, he went back to live action B movies, helming the series Bomba the Jungle Boy starring Johnny Sheffield. Sheffield wrote about working with Beebe and makes him sound like a typical B movie craftsman: pleasant, unpretentious and efficient.

If anybody knows more about Beebe's time at Disney, I'd love to hear about it.

Pinocchio Part 12

Pinocchio Part 11A

This sequence is all about character relationships, something that in later years at Disney would see both characters handled by the same animator. If casting by character, you would think that you'd pick two animators and let them work out the acting between them. However, while Pinocchio is handled by Ollie Johnston, Jiminy is split among Ward Kimball, John Elliotte, Lynn Karp and Walt Clinton. The heavy acting scenes are split between Kimball and Elliotte. As I go through these mosaics, I'm constantly surprised at how little of Jiminy is by Ward Kimball and how good the scenes by the other Jiminy animators are.

The sequence works well. There's a palpable warmth between the characters and there's some nice physical interaction when Pinocchio helps Jiminy put on his hat and coat in shot 27. Jiminy never lets go of the umbrella while putting on his coat, but John Elliotte hides that arm behind Jiminy's body so as not to call attention to it.

The rain in this sequence is beautiful. The cheapest way to do rain is just put a level over the top of the rest of the artwork. Disney goes way beyond that, showing drops hitting the ground and the water reacting to whatever surface it hits. There's water dripping off Jiminy's umbrella and splashing as he runs through puddles to catch up to Stromboli's wagon.

The rain is not just there to show off. It's expressionistically used to show Pinocchio's sorrow at being captured and Jiminy's sorrow over the end of his relationship with Pinocchio. In the next sequence, it will also represent Geppetto's sorrow over the loss of his son and later when the Blue Fairy has freed Pinocchio and Jiminy, the skies will be clear as they head for home. Expressionistic use of backgrounds and effects was one of Disney's strongest tools and the early features are full of this type of storytelling.

Pinocchio Part 11